The Science and Slippery Slope of Lying, Or Practice Makes More Guilt-Free Whoppers Over Time

WHY JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER ISN'T CONCERNED ABOUT AN 8-MEMBER SCOTUS

CALLING ALL HILLARY CLINTONS...

 THIS IS A FASCINATING ARTICLE ON LYING and how the emotional twinge of guilt diminishes over time with practice.

A STUDY OF WHAT GOES ON in the brain when someone tells a lie could offer a biological explanation for why untruths often “snowball over time,” according to psychologist Tali Sharot of University College London.

When people tell small fibs, she and her colleagues reported on Monday in Nature Neuroscience, their brain becomes desensitized to the emotional twinge that dishonesty usually causes. Lying becomes easier and telling ever-bigger self-serving whoppers becomes more likely, they found: that may be why nickel-and-diming on tax returns sometimes balloons into massive fraud, why spousal white lies become deeper secrets, and why scientific misconduct escalates from “losing” data to faking findings.

The consensus is still out on this study but it does make quite a lot of sense to me. Read the rest at RealClearScience.